2. Working in pairs, draw a picture of your partner on a post it
note.
You may write 3 words on the reverse of the post it.
Stick your post it up at the front of class.
Working in pairs, draw a picture of your partner on a post it
note.
You may write 3 words on the reverse of the post it.
Stick your post it up at the front of class.
3. Introductory Task
How accurate is your drawing? Is the subject recognisable?
What elements have you included, what have you left out? Why?
4. Introductory Task
How accurate is your drawing? Is the subject recognisable?
What elements have you included, what have you left out? Why?
Now add a 2 word caption underneath.
How does this change the meaning of what you see?
5. Introductory Task
How accurate is your drawing? Is the subject recognisable?
What elements have you included, what have you left out? Why?
Now add a 2 word caption underneath.
How does this change the meaning of what you see?
What you have created is a representation of reality.
Why might your representation of someone be different to someone else’s?
6. Defining Representation
A very important KEY concept with several possible meanings:
It can signal the way that some media re-present certain groups of
people/events/stories/etc over and over again, possibly changing/evolving
how it is presented
However realistic or plausible media images/texts seem, they never
present the world direct.
They are always a construction - a re-presentation, not a transparent
window on to ‘the real’
11. Media Construction
“Every time we watch or read a media text we are not watching
‘reality’ but someone else’s version of it. The elements that go to
make up the final text will have been constructed in a way that real
life is not.
When we witness an accident in real life we do not witness it from
three angles and in slow motion. This is often the way we view an
accident in a hospital drama.
In ‘real life’ arguments, we do not have the use of close-ups to show
emotion – these are used regularly in films and on television.”
- Connel, B. ed (2010) Exploring The Media: Text Industry Audience
2nd
ed. Auteur
12. Media Construction: “Screenwipe S4E1 ‘TV Lies’”
There are many ways in which the construction of TV programmes
means that what we see is not “real”, even if the producers are not
deliberately setting out to mislead the audience.
Watch the following extract and make notes on the examples of how
TV deceives the viewer.
15. Media Construction
What do you think influences the way that a text is constructed?
•Time and budget constraints
•(Target) Audience needs, views and values (ideology)
•Producers needs, views and values
16. Selection & Ommission
Whatever ends up on a screen or in print, a lot more will have been left out.
Someone will have made the decision about what will be included and what
to omit.
How might this affect how the audience feels about what it sees?
“What is not said in images is every bit as important as what we see.”
Stuart Hall – Representation & The Media
Screenwipe Reality TV editing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI
17. Polysemic (‘open’) and anchored (‘closed’ texts
Most media texts can be read in multiple ways. Such
texts are called ‘open’ texts. This quality of having many
possible meanings is known as polysemy (‘..a polysemic
text..’).
To avoid confusion and ensure texts are read the way
they are intended, some media texts use anchorage
make their message less ambiguous. These are known
as ‘closed’ texts. This might take the form of a caption or
headline with a picture or a voiceover or emotive music
with a moving image.
18. Anchorage and ‘closed’ texts
What meanings could be read of this text? What captions might anchor
the meaning?
19. Anchorage and ‘closed’ texts
What meanings could be read of this text? What captions might anchor
the meaning?
Police Brutality Out Of Hand
or
Heroic Police Stop Violent
Thugs
or
Incompetent police
overpowered by crowds
Actual headline: G20 police 'used undercover men to incite crowds’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/10/g20-policing-agent-provacateurs
The Observer, Sunday 10 May 2009
20. Cheryl Cole Caption Competition
Task: You are the editor of new celebrity
magazine “Meat”
It’s a slow news day and you need to find a
story fast before the print deadline. A
freelance photographer has sold you this pick
of perennial pap princess Ms Cole. Now all
you need is the story.
In pairs, come up with 3 possible
headlines/captions to accompany this image
on the front page.
21. Stuart Hall (1932-2014) was a Jamaican-
born cultural theorist, political activist and
sociologist who lived and worked in the
United Kingdom from 1951.
Known as the "godfather of
multiculturalism", Hall had a huge
influence on academic, political and
cultural debates for over six decades.
Very Important Media Theorist!
22. Stuart Hall stated that “culture is always a translation”
•What do you understand by this?
23. Stuart Hall stated that “culture is always a translation”
•What do you understand by this?
He means that the way we understand the world, culture, society and each
other is always through a process of communication and interpretation of
messages using language.
That does not only mean the written word, but also things like media language:
camera, editing, etc. These are “codes”.
Messages are created and encoded by the (media) producer.
These are then interpreted or decoded by the receiver/audience/consumer
using a “conceptual roadmap”
24. ENCODINGENCODING DECODINGDECODING
Media Text as
meaningful discourse
Media Text as
meaningful discourse
ProductionProduction ConsumptionConsumption
Encoding/decoding modelEncoding/decoding model
25. With his encoding/decoding model, Stuart Hall is suggesting that the meaning
of a representation isn’t made purely by the producer, but actually at the point
that the audience/consumer interprets the message.
How they interpret this message will depend upon a range of external factors,
meaning that any single media representation can have a range of different
meanings. This is known as polysemy.
26. Consider this representation of the
2016 American Election.
What codes have been used to
construct a particular
representation of this event?
27. Consider this representation of the
2016 American Election.
What codes have been used to
construct a particular
representation of this event?
How do they reflect the following?
•Time and budget constraints
•(Target) Audience needs, views
and values (ideology)
•Producers needs, views and values
28. Consider this representation of the
2016 American Election.
How might audiences interpret this
differently (polysemy)?
How have the producers anchored
meaning to the representation?
